Cue another week wasted with trivial distractions from what we should be talking about in the final month-plus of a presidential campaign. Care about foreign policy, government spending, and more? Maybe we'll get around to hashing all that out after the election. But don't hold your breath.

To be sure, a billion-dollar write-off is a lot of money and, as the Times suggests in the story's headline, it means "He Could Have Avoided Paying Taxes for Nearly Two Decades." This adds fuel to the fire that Hillary Clinton lit during last week's presidential debate when she said that there are only sketchy reasons for Trump not to release his federal tax returns to the public, as presidential candidates have almost all done since 1976. A billionaire who doesn't pay any taxes who dares speak for the common man! Ouch, even though there's no reason to think there's anything at all illegal or even fuzzy about Trump's taxes. This will harden Clinton supporters in their contempt for Trump and it will do the same for Trump supporters toward Crooked Hillary, especially if a Clinton operative is unmasked as the leaker. For the record, here's the Trump campaign's official response:

Mr. Trump is a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required. That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes, along with very substantial charitable contributions. Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it.

As I type, Trump and Clinton surrogates are duking it out on the Sunday morning shows, explaining why this unmasks Trump as a uniquely awful plutocrat or reveals him to be the single person who can dismantle our terrible tax code and replace it with something that will allow economic growth. This story, like the Miss Universe controversy that immediately preceded it, clearly puts Trump on the defensive. Given his softening in the polls after a weak debate performance and the rapidly approaching end of the campaign season (there are just 37 days leftt), the tax revelation forces Trump to engage an issue that has nothing to do with the core issues that put him in a tight race to the next president.

New York Times, screen cap

Whatever. Sucks to be Trump right now. But you know what? No laws apparently have been broken and this doesn't even amble into the territory of bad judgment that many of his (and Clinton's) actions do. As Seinfeld's Kramer would note, most of us don't even know what a write-off is, and Trump is the one who's writing it off.

Far more important, this sort of story is a major distraction from actually serious issues tied to the current state of the world and the specific proposals that candidates have laid out in their bids to become the country's next leader. As Matt Welch demonstrated with respect to foreign policy and failed military interventions, we already know that the "Media Would Rather Talk About Gary Johnson's 'Aleppo Moment' Than a Damning New Report on Hillary Clinton's Actual War." And as Brian Doherty pointed out, it turns out that Gary Johnson's trade-and-diplomacy vision for "has impressed even the foreign policy mavens at Foreign Policy magazine." Even as Aleppo is now being besieged by Syrian government, Iranian, and Russian forces and the president has dispatched new troops to Iraq, neither Trump nor Hillary have engaged in meaningful foreign-policy discussion about the United States' role in the world.

CFRB.org

And consider this: According to the latest numbers from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Hillary Clinton would hike spending and taxes over the next decade from its already-upward trajectory and historically high levels, while Trump would reduce expected increases in spending but slash tax revenues by far more (thus resulting in yet-bigger deficits). If you care about this sort of thing, only Libertarian Gary Johnson has pledged to submit a balanced budget in his first year while reducing spending and simplifying taxes. Both major-party candidates have signed on to a host of new federal programs (such as paid family leave) and Clinton is pushing for free in-state tuition at public colleges and a doubling of the federal minimum wage. Where Clinton says she wants to expand Social Security and Medicare, two of the largest federal spending programs, Trump has said that he would leave benefits untouched. Neither bothers to offer credible ways to pay for such stuff.

Both candidates' plans to increase the debt come on top of current law projections that already estimate that debt will grow by $9 trillion over the next decade. As a result, under Clinton's plans debt would grow from nearly 77 percent of GDP today to over 86 percent by 2026; under Trump's plans, debt would grow to 105 percent of GDP by 2026.

Note also that CRFB is talking about debt held by the public, a subset of overall government debt. When you add what government agencies owe each other (such as FICA taxes supposedly earmarked for Social Security, Medicare, and more that are spent on other things and replaced by IOUs), the gross debt owed by the government is at or above 100 percent of the economy. Read more from CRFB here.

Even among the content-lite campaigns of recent memory, the 2016 general race has failed to generate much in the way of serious policy discussion. On the Republican side, Donald Trump bullied and vanquished his primary opponents by talking incessantly about the phantom menace of illegal Mexican immigration that peaked almost a decade ago and that 90 percent of Republicans didn't even care about. At other times, we were treated to disquisitions about the size of his cock, his admiration of Vladimir Putin, and his apparent lack of basic legislative process. On the Democratic side, the Sanders insurgency goosed Clinton's already-expansive vision of government so the former secretary of state is now promising just about everything to everyone without any pretense of paying for it. She is explicitly running as a continuation of Barack Obama, whose personal charm obscures the sad fact that over 60 percent of Americans agree the country is going in the wrong direction (only about 30 percent think it's headed in the right direction). Gary Johnson, the most-successful third-party candidate in decades, has voluntarily stepped in more dog piles than he should have, but is at least bringing some serious policy talk to the campaign while also providing a counter to liberal and conservative visions of bigger government.

The Trump tax story will likely be joined by other "October surprises" sprung on the candidates. Here's hoping the next bombshell will actually spur a substantive discussion about the policies we need to create a more free, more fair, and more prosperous society. But let's not kid ourselves, right?

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Report abuses.

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This should be an easy slam-dunk for Libertarians. The D/R’s are completely responsible for our tax system – and an income-only tax system must inevitably be filled with loopholes and scams that only the truly wealthy can take advantage of – while they simultaneously control/corrupt that same govt.

But because of petulant anarcho sentiment, libertarians can’t bring themselves to accept that even a nightwatchmen govt is gonna require some taxation and involuntary revenue. Because of Randian sentiment, libertarians can’t tolerate any criticism of even the most vile wannabe plutocrat. The we-who-know-everything wing of libertarians (ie Reason) can’t even bring themselves to deal with the mathematical reality that taxes/spending/debt is ALL the same fucking issue and is EASILY the biggest issue facing the country. And the Prez candidate is wedded to the one tax reform that is even worse than an income-oriented tax system.

Hayzeus H Freekin Krist. What a fucken waste of oxygen this ‘libertarian moment’ has turned out to be.

Meanwhile itty bitty tax-haven Switzerland has a federal tax system that is worth emulating in toto – with low marginal rates AND no possibility of this Trump-type scam occurring. And 8 of the other ‘most free’ countries have at least a few elements of their tax system that make them freer than we are. Meanwhile – libertarians in the US fall for the Somalia strawman every time.

Its not jibberish. At the federal level, the govt of Switzerland spends roughly 11% of GDP. HALF of what the US spends at the federal level. The last time the US govt spent 11% of GDP was before the New Deal. They have a govt debt of 30% of GDP. We have a debt of 100% of GDP. The last time we had a public debt of 30% was – before the New Deal. They are able to accomplish this with a three-legged federal tax system – 2.5%-8% on consumption; 12% on income; 0.5% or so on wealth – collected by the cantons and sent to the federals. Many cantons collect more (up to 2x more) – but that’s their local/cantonal business. The last time we had the federal government that dependent on the state level for revenue collection was the Articles of Confederation.

But hey – its obviously far better to argue useless theories and accomplish nothing than it is to present a real-world example that could solve 90% of the problem freaking overnight – AND solve the basic libertarian problem of looking like a bunch of ethically-challenged reality-challenged twits.

I’m all for the Federal government returning to its traditional sources of tax revenue: excise taxes and customs duties. However, that would interact poorly with the regulatory apparatus’s implicit goal of stifling and occasionally outright destroying domestic economic activity. The government isn’t going to make much money from those sources if it’s more focused on penalizing and shutting down businesses and commerce.

And the Federal government already taxes wealth, through a nifty process they call “inflation”.

You have beaten that straw man to an absolute pulp. I don’t think he’s getting back up.

In the real world, however, the LP and most small-“l” libertarians accept the necessity of some kind of government generating some kind of revenue, probably through taxation. You’re thinking of anarcho-capitalists, and that’s not the same thing. As for Objectivists slobbering over Trump, you not only don’t understand what Objectivism is, but you totally mischaracterize both Objectivists and Trump if you think he’s someone that represents some sort of Objectivist ideal; he’s actually a villain straight out of Atlas Shrugged.

yup. Three kids, two income professionally employed parents. The amount we pay in taxes is disgusting. When you really look at the tax code, it becomes blatantly apparent that it is designed for two purposes. 1) Bread to the masses. tax credits and the like send money right into the pockets of a vast number of citizens. Romney was absolutely right about the 47% remark. Far too many potential voters have hard reasons to vote for the people promising them more gold out of the coffers. 2) Keep the middle class in check. The tax code makes it counterproductive to keep earning above a certain level. Once you hit a certain income, the credits disappear, the tax rate goes up, and you get hit with the AMT. My family is comfortable, but I have little incentive to work harder and earn more. For each new dollar I earn, around 50% goes to the Feds/State/Local in taxes. It’s appalling and nearly impossible for people to break through that tax barrier unless you can hide income by cooking the books on a small business.

That latter is what harms free markets and is why the income tax (the reliance on it) was put in place as an instrument of cronyism. Economically, king of the mountain is always already wealthy. The rule of law is designed to protect that position and regulate competition for it. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.-Adam Smith. Trump is not ‘powerful’ because of debt-fueled binges that generate income losses. Buffett is not ‘powerful’ because he has modest consumption and chooses his income level. They are powerful because of their ownership of property protected by the rule of law.

Switzerland understands this. Income (one year transactions) can be damn near irrelevant to some. They do not ‘punish the wealthy’ by taxing 12% of income and 0.5% of wealth. The already wealthy understand this too and they are not masochists. They don’t need to corrupt things there or play tax avoidance games there. And a 12% income tax eliminates the disincentives to be ambitious and build wealth via income for those who don’t already have wealth. Switzerland does it right. We don’t.

For a number of years, I was one of those that were being paid by the government. I was a single father of two kids with moderate income. My deductions would lower my tax liability to zero, and then EITC would get in and I would get an extra couple of hundred bucks. While I do agree this is wrong, there were other areas that I though I was paying more than I should have because of my situation. For example, Head-of-Household deduction is smaller than married deduction (why?). I still paid “single” rates for auto insurance, even as I argued with every insurer that having 2 children in the car is going to make me a safer driver than just having a spouse in the car. Etc, etc.

When Tony and his ilk define “fair” BEFORE saying someone’s taxes are ‘UNfair,’ I’ll play his game, but not until. Try that with anyone who uses the word “fair” in virtually any context. The sound of will drown every other sound out…

‘Tax avoidance’ (which isn’t illegal as its simply using the guidance of the law to arrange your affairs to minimize your tax burden) should be illegal and tax avoidance should be defined however I say it is at the moment.

The dude himself can’t even come up with a clear or consistent definition that doesn’t immediately contradict whatever scare he’s trying to monger up for the corporation du jour.

The math is secondary to the narrative. Despite the fact that, like most everyone else, they’ve never paid their own income taxes at the nominal rates, the fact that “the rich” also don’t pay income taxes at nominal rates is of colossal importance because they have a quasi-religious fixation on other people’s “greed” (but for some reason it’s never considered greedy to want to take more from others).

To anyone who asks, “why do billionaires get to pay less in taxes than I do?!”, it’s fun to retort “oh, you paid $10 million in taxes last year?”

2. Yeah, we have this thing where we tax your profits. You don’t make a profit and we don’t tax what you didn’t make. Weird how consistency works, isn’t it?

3. In order for him to have gotten 18 years of tax relief he would have had to eaten that loss himself. If he got debt relief – as in a creditor took a haircut – then that counts as income and that income offsets the loss. If he got a billion of tax relief then he didn’t get to use that loss (because the loss is not being borne by him) to offset his tax burden. **Odds are that’s why *this* particular return was released but none of the earlier or later ones. This one shows a staggering loss, earlier ones were probably uninteresting and later ones showed how he managed the tax liability.**

4. If he ‘parked’ his debt (used a separate company to buy up that debt, not relieve it officially but not demand payment of that debt either) then he’s in violation of the law and the Dem ops in the IRS will be coming down on him like a 10-*tonne* (because they’re pro-European socialists, natch) hammer. **But if he did that then you’d likely have seen the next few years of returns where he’s claiming it as an offset.**

I don’t think it’s incorrect to say it though. He avoided paying taxes by taking the loss. The problem is the assumption that avoiding taxes is somehow a bad thing, even if done legally. Every rational person avoids paying as much in taxes as he can.

That is the lefties manufactured talking point. I am glad you put it that way because that isnt the case here at all.

“…Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes, along with very substantial charitable contributions.”

I don’t know why so many people are getting all worked up about “avoiding taxes”. Avoiding taxes is good. He did and he should have (assuming it was all legal). Any businessman (or anyone) should avoid paying as much tax as possible.

Yes, if you are a $40K/year guy based on the, let’s say, corner market you owe as a sole proprietor, and your business goes under one year and you end up losing $20K for the year — you also pay no taxes, same as the billionaire.

Sheesh, is it so hard for people to understand that if you have less than zero net income, you pay no income tax? Do people want income tax to be based on what others think you should owe rather than your actual income?

I would disagree with that I get nothing form the government and no roads do not count since i pay the taxes that pay for those roads, and to further the road I live on is privately paid for and most major roads in this town were made before the the state even became a state.

Really? You think people who make 40k have no way to reduce their taxes? I’d wager a household with 40k of wage income pays close to zero fed incom tax with our current tvrates include massive ACA subsidies too

It’s called a loss carryforward. You can “carry forward ” losses and use them to offset future income until you use it all up. This isn’t something only billionaires can do, anyone with losses that exceed any offsetting income can carry those losses forward. It’s actually kind of a raw deal in that you have to immediately pay tax on realized gains but have to carry forward losses against future income. I think there’s a carrybavk provision in there as well but I think you can only carry back 2 years or something. I’m out of practice with my tax rules.

If the losses were paid back in the same year there would be a big incentive to game the system for quick cash. People far more informed than I will see the same option and figure out how to most efficiently shuffle paperwork to get the biggest failed business benefits they could.

In case anyone misses the point – the loopholes for billionaire real-estate developers are at least have the responsibility of the Democrats and other progressives in Congress.

You want to close loopholes, stop using the tax code for social engineering. Stop with this ‘progressive/regressive tax’ bullshit. Go to a flat tax with a minimum income threshhold. Stop pretending tax is incident on corporations – as you like to say, corporations aren’t people’ and only people (shareholders, employees, and customers) pay tax. Stop pretending investment income is ‘unearned’ and people who get it are ‘undeserving’ and that that ‘justifies taking it away from them at the point of a gun’.

Treat all income, whatever the source, the same. Levy the same tax rate against everyone. Set the minimum tax due threshhold to handle poverty.

That’s not *Cruz’* platform – as in Cruz didn’t come up with this. The Flat Tax is a lot older than that and has been advocated by a lot of people, including in other countries, as ‘more progressive in actuality’ than the actual ‘progressive’ tax system we (and other nations) have.

So, you take one state tax return, probably selected just because it does show a loss, and extrapolate 20 years of not paying federal taxes???? And admit in the same story (but not the headline of course) that the return is FULLY COMPLIANT with the tax laws of the time. And, oh, by the way, violate those same tax laws by having the return, publishing the return, and not turning in whoever sent it. Yep, sounds like the New York Times. “all the news that fits, we print”

A smart investment how? All we know is that Trump (allegedly) had a huge tax loss. We don’t know the details of that loss and there’s no suggestion that it was phony. If it was a true economic loss, how is that a smart investment?

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We’ve become fixated on these issue mostly out of cosmotarian type concerns about gay marriage, obsessions with what’s happening on college campuses, Gamergate, Black Lives Matter, etc., etc.

The whole world is wedge issues now.

Decisions are made based on who’s a racist, who’s a homophobe, who’s a sexist, who hates Muslims and Mexicans, etc., etc.

Are you saying those issues don’t really matter?

Generally speaking, on economic issues, they don’t.

And it’s a distraction from economic issues. Hell, there’s a whole generation of people who think that economic issues are about how many black people have been hired in various professions, whether women are getting equal pay, etc., etc.

Reason didn’t make this bed by themselves, but other than Gillespie’s welcome contributions, who else at Reason is writing about the economy to the exclusion of other peripheral issues?

Even substantive questions like free speech, association rights, gun rights, etc. are being dominated by questions of whether their supporters are racists, homophobes, etc. If we should be focusing on the merits of those issues regardless of whose a racist or a homophobe, then making a bigger deal out of racism and homophobia than it should be is a) possible and b) a detriment to the cause of our rights and freedoms.

I believe their obsession about who’s a racist, who’s a sexist, who’s a homophobe, etc. ultimately stems from their genuine concern on those issues.

But thee are other concerns. Social justice can’t be the solution to everything. If you’re not prospering as you should because of technology changes, your education level, inflation, currency issues, regulation, taxes, a recession, etc., then your race, sexual orientation, religion, immigrant status, sex, etc. really aren’t the issue.

I believe their obsession about who’s a racist, who’s a sexist, who’s a homophobe, etc. ultimately stems from their genuine concern on those issues.

It’s not their “concern” that’s the issue, it is their failures. That is, not only have they failed to help minorities, women, and homosexuals through their laws, they have actually hurt them/us. As they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

You are making a mistake Ken. Don’t think for a minute that they can be taken at their word. Look at their actions. All of those issues are pretenses, nothing more. It is very obvious in so many waysTheir concern over feminism, homosexuals, religious practice, etc does not extend to individuals in cultures that truly are repressive. Their only concern seems to be to tear down the existing social order here in the west. Modern western culture is the only culture that has truly put individuals above the collective. That is what they want to destroy.

Their obsession over those issues ultimately stems from their desire to subjugate the individual.

You believe voters’ concerns about racism are really a front for their desire to impoverish themselves along with the rest of us?

You need to be clear about who you’re talking about.

You think that if I care–to whatever extent–about the government not discriminating against gay people, that means I doesn’t really care about the economy?

I happen to care more about the economy than most people, but just because people care about racism doesn’t mean they don’t care about the economy at all. It just means that they’re easily distracted by that issue.

Progressive politicians use these as wedge issues, but the reason they work as wedge issues is that people really care about them. Unfortunately, that only seems to stop working when a) that strategy loses them a big election or b) when the economy goes bad.

When the economy goes bad, suddenly people start caring more about the economy than they do about other issues.

We shouldn’t feed into that, but maybe the reason Reason doesn’t cover the economy exclusive of other peripheral issues, as much, is because those kinds of stories don’t generate much interest.

Over the last week, the Obama Administration sent the world markets on a run over his stupid fines of Duetsch bank. Hardly anyone cares because it isn’t impacting them right now–and there isn’t really a racist, homphobic, anti-Muslim, whatever social justice take to spin with it.

Nobody wants to know what real people think or want to know about what is going on.

The media said 100 million would watch the debate between Trump and Hillary. It was closer to 84 million according to Nielsen. I don’t believe those ratings anyway because they count tvs at airports as a viewer, even when nobody is watching tv.

Supposedly, 80 millions people watched the 1980 debate between Carter and Reagan, so not a big increase in 36 years.

Point is, some people care a lot about politics, some don’t care at all and most are in between somewhere. Just because the media says what they think people care about does not mean that is true.

Welcome contributions?!! Gillespie is the definition os useful idiot distractor. The only time he wants to talk about fiscal issues is to validate his starve the beast idea on military spending. His ideal candidate is “serious” about cutting spending as demonstrated by his less than 1% reform to entitlements which really amount to formalizing their status as welfare programs.

I think the media narrative-pumping really only stops working when no one cares and simply ignores what they choose to try and magnify. Its certainly possible to do. I still have no idea who/what the “Fat Miss America” thing was about, and I think i’m better off for it.

Instead of writing about this shit, maybe Nick could have someone write about how we’re fighting other people’s wars in at least 3 countries right now, yet no one in the media has even bothered to ask “Why?”

the answer is certainly not “ISIS” because we were fighting all 3 before they ever came into being (*see the “JV-team” remarks of Jan 2014 – we were well involved in Syria, Yemen, and Libya at that point). if anything, they’ve just been a convenient excuse to perpetuate existing policy.

Uh, I really don’t think you want Nick writing about fighting other people’s wars. If his insight into diplomatic/military intervention and international relations as a whole is as substantial as, say, his views on pop culture, I don’t think we’ll get anything except a “pox on both TEAM’s houses” and applies to some vague standard of ‘non-interventionism’.

I’ve been to several PGA events…Tour Championship, Memphis Tournament a couple of times. Watching them play in person is the attraction for me, the first person experience of their skills is what I like to see.

i recall a piece not long ago (this aint it, but may be close) pointing out that the foundation was structured to both

– enable unlimited donations from shady sources with the least amount of disclosure – allow them to pay their ’employees’ (themselves) huge amounts and call it “expenses” rather than salary – make lots of transfer payments to other charities and collect the vig – etc.

if they’d really been a proper “charity”, where they spent the funds on specific causes or philanthropic efforts, they’d have structured it differently, which provided more transparency and less diverse use-of-funds. Because being an effective charity means being able to measure how much of your funds are getting to the ‘charitable end-purpose’, and how much is just wasted overhead. They specifically do the opposite; where its basically impossible to see how any of the money is actually ‘being used’.

South Korea should rebuild its flagpole slightly taller and slightly more impressively. Then, when the Norks freak out and build theirs bigger, make a better one. Make several. Make a flag park. Keep the Norks spending money they don’t have.

South Korea could probably fund that program through charity – for the Norks, their side would require a noticable percentage of NK’s GDP to keep up.

The SU fell because they couldn’t supply washing machines. The KDPR could fall because they can’t build a big enough flagpole.

“Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.”

The ‘real issues’ are going to be avoided by politicians as much as they can. Emotional appeal and tribalism is more likely to charge up your base than any serious discussion of the issues, particularly if you have to take any stance other than some vague platitude that conforms to your audience’s emotional bias. This isn’t exactly new in politics, but the constant politicization of everything, coupled with a 24 hour media cycle has driven politics to the forefront of many people’s lives, whether they like it or not, has in turn driven partisanship to new levels. The politician of now and the future merely has to tick off certain boxes that confirms the image their base wants, and, in the case of Clinton, have a massive media influence just push and push and push this image regardless of if it conforms to reality. And if the people start to get uppity, just spew out more emotional appeals.

“The Obama campaign in 2008 opened the Pandora’s Box on this I think.”

I think the worst thing about that campaign was how it cemented this idea that the president is supposed to be some hip, cool dude who is in tune with popular culture.

Instead of demonstrating their abilities to effectively and efficiently manage the executive branch of the federal government, future candidates will just do fist-bumps, appear on late night talk shows, and yuck it up with comedians at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

I’m too lazy to read through that NYT article. What return was this? Was it Trump’s personal return, or was it some sort of Trump, Inc document? It seems unlikely Trump would just dump a $915,000,000 loss on his Schedule C.

My point is: are they accusing Trump personally of paying no tax, based on a corporate return? It’s not like they’re being completely dishonest, or anything. Is the NYT going to say Tim Cook owes 15 billion dollars to the Irish tax man, next?

The funny thing about the chimpout over this is that Trump wrote “Art of the Comeback” specifically about the fallout from that billion-dollar loss, and the Times is acting like this is fresh, new information.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump leaked this to the media himself just to fuck with them.

It is a 1995 return He showed a $950 million loss that year. You are allowed to take that loss over so many years. So the allegation is he used the loss to off set his taxable income over up to 20 years and pay no taxes. That is it. Why there is anything wrong with not taking all the loss in one year or even how many years Trump spread out the loss is never explained.

Obviously the sugar subsidies would continue so it would be business as usual there. We would see a shift from corn to oats but as our food supply is dangerously concentrated there will be some positive second order effects. We would see a preference of tracks over casinos as jobs have to be created and athletes have high visibility.

The average American wouldn’t see much of a difference though. The biggest question is will the Senator’s filly be a funny comedian? From historical precedent, Mr Ed, we know that when a horse does make it currently they have talent but that is no guarantee horses are genetically funnier than humans. Whether the average American notices is dependent on relative individual abilities.

I am deliberately avoiding the issue of acceptance of Brown Beauty, Nelson and Blueskin as national heroes. Unfortunately every time the topic comes out the specist trolls come out in droves.

What’s the big deal,you don’t pay taxes on a personal business loss and you can write that off. I did it once in the 90’s when I left a C Corp I was part owner of and the shop folded several months later. I took write offs for a couple years on a K form You can not write it all off at once in many cases .

Most likely.I paid capital gains and income tax for several years. Plus there’s the matching taxes,state and B & O taxes [ that are on gross ,not profit in WV ],personal property tax,workers comp,unemployment and sales and taxes. Going self employed with no employees was the smartest thing Ive done as a barber money wise.

Induction technology itself isn’t nonsense. If you currently have an electric stove top I seriously recommend you look at an induction replacement. Depending on how much of your cookware has to be replaced you might be able to save a lot on your energy bills. Current induction models need ferric cookware so iron or steel.

Induction vehicle charging is less advanced. There is a major loss in induction charging compared to a direct connection. The real question is can we offset that loss with gains from reduced vehicle weight. The idea itself isn’t completely ridiculous. It makes more sense in Europe due to higher population densities so I am glad the Swedes are funding the research.

You are completely correct about the ‘greens’ though. I don’t know of any group more likely to use meaningless statistics. That doesn’t mean I completely dismiss every idea promoted by that corner. Occasionally dumb luck strikes and they support a good idea. Normally for the wrong reason though.

Driver Ameer Abbaf Fakhraldin slammed into a car being driven by Scott Alcala, an Afghanistan war veteran who was on his way from Fresno to San Jose to play golf with his father.

“I saw the Suburban coming right at me about to T-bone right into the driver door and I thought that was it. A second later I turned my head and just smashed into the barrier,” Alcala told the station.

Alcala said that when an off-duty police officer went to talk to Fakhraldin, he said that he caused the collision in the name of Allah. He also cited Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s treatment of minorities for why he caused the crash.

Fakhraldin told an officer at the scene that he estimated his own speed to be 200 mph and that he caused the crash using psychic/telekinetic powers to control the steering. The officer said Fakhraldin showed no remorse, Fox 26 reported, citing the police report.

because people in custody and charged with crimes are normally otherwise so readily available for interviews.

Look man, “retarded” is your thing, i get that. But ‘bone-stupid’ is Shreek’s territory, and i don’t think he’ll appreciate you repeatedly making idiotic statements like that (*and assuming the driver somehow knew his target was a veteran from a Trump bumper-sticker)

i’m sure the public defenders REGULARLY offer additional information about their admitted-terrorist clients that assert Telekinetic powers. Why, they just leap at reporters. Which is why you’re citing so many examples of it happening.

You haven’t pointed to a single example how this was any different than any other news-reporter’s treatment of a ‘vehicular assault’.

You’re just claiming that there’s some (undemonstrated) standard which you imagine this falls short of. Because you’re a complete fucking retard, and you enjoy pestering people with your brand of smug-whine

According to the article, Fox never attempted to question the jihadi, his lawyer, or anyone else who might have spoken up on his behalf. But I’m being too harsh on them. If a cop tells something to a reporter and it’s published by Fox, that’s all we need really.

“Ignores fact that the jihadi and his lawyer hadn’t released a statement to the press”

And you ignore the fact that Fox never made the effort to verify the cop’s claim. Had they done so, it would have been in the article. ‘Fox News was unable to contact the jihadi for a statement.’ You may have seen similar such statements in news stories. Maybe even on Fox.

I mean after all, couldn’t the lawyer release a statement immediately to Fox and other news outlets to allow them to update the article? Even in these cases where inner-city yutes are charged with crimes, the family members immediately get in touch with the press to say “he’s a good boy who was turning his life around, going back to church and was about to drop a mix tape.”

Maybe the reason the lawyer hasn’t done so is because he or she knows the statements aren’t bullshit and they don’t want to do further damage to the case.

If you’re a jihadi, it should be standard operating procedure to state your act was in the name of Allah (*the most merciful, natch), AND then announce that you have super-powers and believe the earth is being invaded by space creatures.

Its a win-win; you get the propaganda victory for the Jihad, but you also get an easy out if/when they try and take you to court and prosecute you as a ‘Terry’.

Its notable that these passionate jihadis are often equally passionate of staying out of jail; unlike previous generations of ideological terrorists, they don’t seem to want to suffer for their cause so much. Either quick death as a martyr, or I DEMAND A LAWYER

to be fair, often they reject the legal council provided by the Western Secular Imperialists; but they DO put a lot of effort into their own batshit legal-defense. I recall the case of Moussaoui, some others, which provided for some very entertaining courtroom-reporting.

Most people paying $40,000 who have a kid or two don’t pay taxes. So at that level, getting your tax deductions to the point where they equal out your tax liability is just a fun time with the opposite sex and a 9 month wait.

On top of that, you get money from the government through Earned Income Credit- like $5,000 depending on how little you earned. One of my low level employees who only worked for me for 2 months so that she could keep getting benefits went to Disney World with her two kids when she got her tax “return.”

And something that is never, ever mentioned doing away with is the direct payouts to people above and beyond their tax liability. That just pisses me off. I’m paying extra damned money to someone who has zero tax liability….

But lets just keep electing god damned progressives. They truly believe that SOME DAY they will tax the rich enough to pay all the bills and debts off….. Pure fantasy, but its better to believe that than to prepare for the crash that is coming.

And again. Libertarian magazine backs high tax rates because that’s the governments money that they’re not letting you keep.

With our modern progressive big government obsession, yes starving the beast has to be an option.

Other libertarian viewpoint conveniently ignored is that cutting taxes on businesses will spur growth in the economy. Growth that has been anemic because the Obama administration has insisted on the highest corporate income tax rates in the west….

The magical libertarian voices that sound like Reason writers and seem to enter some commentators’ heads. Or it’s just reflexive libertarian paranoia combined with reflexive libertarian purity ranking.

He is a bad business man who lost money one year. The allegation is that he wrote that loss off over years to avoid paying taxes, which assumes he made money those other years. So a guy who makes money most years is a bad business man?

Set aside for a moment Trump’s low character, his penchant for inflaming racial tensions, his personal corruptions. Assume for the sake of argument that all that can be folded into a “lesser of two evils” case.

What remains is this question: Can Donald Trump actually execute the basic duties of the presidency? Is there any way that his administration won’t be a flaming train wreck from the start? Is there any possibility that he’ll be levelheaded in a crisis ? be it another 9/11 or financial meltdown, or any of the lesser-but-still-severe challenges that presidents reliably face?

————

Months ago, I worried that Trump was too authoritarian to be entrusted with the presidency. That worry has receded a bit, because authoritarianism requires a ruthless sort of competence that Trump cannot attain.

But fecklessness in the presidency can be as destructive as malice, and not just to the country: A disastrous chief executive can do devastating damage to his own political ideas.

At least two dozen countries have implemented mandatory voting with fines or community service for those who fail to comply ? with major increases in turnout. In Australia, for example, compulsory voting increased average turnout to 91 percent from 67 percent.

It wasn’t just turnout that changed. Results did, as well. When Anthony Fowler, a public policy professor at the University of Chicago, examined the Australian results, required turnout had a large effect on the outcome ? a gain of between 7 and 10 percent for the Labor Party.

“Democracies with voluntary voting do not represent the preferences of all citizens,” he concluded. “Increased voter turnout can dramatically alter election outcomes and resulting public policies.”

i’ll maybe start to consider this whole ‘mandatory participation’ bullshit when the major parties actually see some legitimate 3rd party competition and actually have to “debate” – not this bullshit staged Q&A game show they do. I mean have multiple candidates speaking directly to one another, throwing questions at each other, and rationally defend their policy stances..

None of these authoritarians ever bother to explain WHY it is a problem*. A non-vote is simply a sign that one is more or less happy with the way things are. The laundry list of “class warfare” excuses for not voting are bullshit.

*Although the “gain of between 7 and 10 percent for the Labor Party” is the most refreshingly honest reason I have seen.

Or are basically unhappy with the way things are, but know perfectly well that voting will do less than nothing to change that.

You don’t exactly have to be a principled non-voter to conclude that spending time on the choice of which flavor shit you want in your sandwich is less rewarding than spending it on, say, sleep, video games, Internet porn, or stabbing yourself repeatedly in the hand.

Even as Aleppo is now being besieged by Syrian government, Iranian, and Russian forces and the president has dispatched new troops to Iraq, neither Trump nor Hillary have engaged in meaningful foreign-policy discussion about the United States’ role in the world.

We’re supposed to care about Aleppo, but we don’t actually have to care about Aleppo. Nomsayin?

Trump bankrupted a public company collapsing the share price from $45 to pennies screwing thousands out of their money all while paying himself a $40 million dollar a year salary then he used the company’s losses to avoid paying his own federal personal income taxes for more than a decade.

i’ll maybe start to consider this whole ‘mandatory participation’ bullshit when the major parties actually see some legitimate 3rd party competition and actually have to “debate” – not this bullshit staged Q&A game show they do.

I’m holding out for a binding “none of the above” option on the ballot. The position must be left open (or, better yet, abolished) if NOTA wins.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? Hillary Clinton said Sunday that the spate of gun violence in the United States should call the nation to do more to protect “all of God’s children.”

“Protecting all of God’s children is America’s calling,” the Democratic presidential nominee said. Clinton said too many black families have been forced to deal with the same tragedy as Scott’s family.

“Our entire country should take a moment to really look at what’s going on here and across America, to imagine what we see on the news and what we hear about, imagine it through our children’s eyes,” she said.

During the services, Clinton invited 9-year-old Zianna Oliphant to join her at the pulpit, recalling the black child’s tearful address to the city council on race relations. Zianna recently told city leaders that she couldn’t “stand how we’re treated,” a speech that Clinton said moved her to tears.

Also, I eagerly await all the left leaning atheists who freak out about ‘In God We Trust’ on the money to start screaming about how their candidate is a theocrat who rejects secularism thanks to that bit of pandering.

Residents of Weed, including the current mayor and three former mayors, say the water was always intended for municipal and domestic use and should not be sold to the highest bidder.

“The corporate mentality is that they can make more money selling this water to Japan,” said Bob Hall, a former mayor of Weed and currently a member of the City Council. “We were hooked at the hip with this company for years,” he said of the timber company, the largest private employer in the area. “Now, they are taking advantage of people who can’t defend themselves.”

Bottled-water plants have met with resistance and in some cases protests in a number of places across California, including a Nestl? plant last year in Sacramento. In the water-rich towns in the shadow of Mount Shasta, residents have raised concerns over proposed bottling plants that they say could severely diminish local water supplies.

A measure on the ballot in the November election in Siskiyou County, where the towns are, would for the first time require that companies obtain permits to export water.

Progressives want government water systems but let them fall apart, because government is BEST. Then they drink water in overpriced plastic bottles, because government run water systems are not clean. Perfect progtard reasoning.

If a bottled water plant will ‘severely diminish local water supplies’ then the town is not ‘water-rich’.

I love the magic water scams. Water is fucking water is fucking water.

In the parish where I live the water is well water pumped by electric pumps. It is pretty good water, but if the power goes out for whatever reason so does the water. In case of such a situation I have two 0.1 micron filters good for 1M gallons each that will filter up to 500 gals per day. The product is good for dogs and bathing. I can then put that through activated charcoal filters for drinking. I can dip water out of the bayou and run it through those two and what I get is potable water better than the normal tap water.

It is just fucking water. There is nothing magic about the source. If is treated properly water is water.

I cannot believe we let the illiterate inner city minority voters decide our elections. Typical class warfare argument to divert attention from catastrophic problems that face this nation. The Republican issues: jobs, the national debt, the heroin epidemic. Democratic issues– Did he call some chick fat twenty-five years ago?(with no proof he did so), Did he legally execute US tax laws in filing his tax loss for a business? (again twenty years ago), and is he a big fat meanie?

The Democratic party is run by infants. Destroy them through any means necessary. Explain to me who is the ‘low’ information voter here.

It would be too easy to say ‘you’, but the truth is you aren’t low information. The problem is that that information goes in, gets scrambled to shit and what comes out resembles something that looks like a poor critter with serious genetic defects: limbs and parts in all the wrong places and in the wrong numbers.

I’m watching football via over-the-air signal. This means I am being bombarded with ads I ordinarily would not see, like the hysterical xenophobic anti-Bullock one running over and over about how our governor is importing millions of Syrian terrorists into Montana.

The Bullock campaign is running on xenophobia as well. Practically every ad emphasizes how Gianforte is not a “real Montanan” because he’s from New Jersey. I also heard a radio ad last week indulging in “tey tuk r jerbs!” concern-trolling over Gianforte outsourcing jerbs to foreigners.

Not kidding : In any other election cycle the Middle East debacle would be front and centre now that the US has been helplessly sidelined in Syria . The MSM should have Hilary on the carpet but instead they duck the pictures of daily carnage . The US has poured trillions of Americans tax $ into the Middle East quagmire – a failed Obama / Clinton foreign policy . There is not one iota of integrity left for the MSM in this election cycle as the mainstream media mounts the – Clear and Present Danger – charge against the Donald and tries to politically ‘assassinate’ him – fear mongering at its very worst! .

Look, I don’t know about you, “Reason” editors, but last time I checked, disclosing a person’s tax returns — no matter how old they relate to (in this instance 1995?) — was a FELONY. Trump may, sooner or later, wind up “owning” the smug, self-satisfied, so-called “paper of record” when all is said and done.

I have to disagree with the basic premise of Mr. Gillespie. The politicians are talking about these “trivial distractions” because most voters are using them to make their decision. Something becomes important in politics if it moves the polls – and these things are certainly doing just that.

If America was still populated by an informed, mature and responsible electorate none of these ridiculous, and I agree TRIVIAL issues would be part of the discourse.

Unfortunately, the Trump ascendancy and Jeb Bush not making it out of low single digits in the primary has proven beyond any doubt – policy has very little to do with how we chose our politicians anymore.

Sorry Nick – we are a bunch of drooling idiots – or at least most of us are.

Unfortunately, the Trump ascendancy and Jeb Bush not making it out of low single digits in the primary has proven beyond any doubt – policy has very little to do with how we chose our politicians anymore.

Mostly wrong. The republican primary voters overwhelmingly told the Bush family to please go away forever and leave us alone primarily because the country is acutely and painfully aware of what a total disaster the Bush family policies have been for the country.

No more Bush family big government liberal republicanism. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

the Republican primary voters recognized that Jeb was a mealy-mouthed putz who had negligible gravitas and positions that were far more lefty than most of the other candidates. Jeb wouldn’t have been out of single digits even if the country had never heard of his father or brother.

Why is it a big deal that Trump didn’t release documents he was legally permitted to keep private, but it’s NOT a big deal that Hillary Clinton destroyed documents she WAS legally required to produce, and that were under subpoena?

I’m pretty sick of hearing the false premise that cutting taxes automatically means more deficits unless you cut the equivalent amount of spending. Sure, if you want to score it statically, that might be the case. However, cutting taxes actually increases healthy productivity which increases revenue, and (maybe a bit more importantly) NATIONAL HAPPINESS. The amount can’t be quantified especially if you are also regulated to DEATH. But, looking at the Reagan years will give anyone a clue what less regulation and cutting taxes results can be.

I’m pretty sick of hearing the false premise that cutting taxes automatically means more deficits unless you cut the equivalent amount of spending. Sure, if you want to score it statically, that might be the case. However, cutting taxes actually increases healthy productivity which increases revenue, and (maybe a bit more importantly) NATIONAL HAPPINESS. The amount can’t be quantified especially if you are also regulated to DEATH. But, looking at the Reagan years will give anyone a clue what less regulation and cutting taxes results can be.

I’m pretty sick of hearing the false premise that cutting taxes automatically means more deficits unless you cut the equivalent amount of spending. Sure, if you want to score it statically, that might be the case. However, cutting taxes actually increases healthy productivity which increases revenue, and (maybe a bit more importantly) NATIONAL HAPPINESS. The amount can’t be quantified especially if you are also regulated to DEATH. But, looking at the Reagan years will give anyone a clue what less regulation and cutting taxes results can be.

The NYT is happy to dance right over the line of ethics and legality by publishing personal information of a candidate for POTUS. But yet completely avert its eyes from the glaring pay-to-play scandals in the Clinton Foundation.

That’s a darn fine press we have. “paper of record” my ass. If Trump loses, I would love to see him devote his energy and resources to suing the NYT into the ground. First Ammendment protections are tricky when you blatantly divulge illegally obtained information.

Clinton obviously knows as little about taxes and the tax codes as she knows about email and wiping email servers with a cloth. It takes little effort to figure out that Trump has paid taxes on somewhere in the range of $3.5 billion dollars worth of real estate. Since that is spread across many states the rates may range from maybe 1% for his residential properties, to as high as 6% on his commercial properties in New York. Of course, all those taxes to states, counties and cities are deductible expenses against his income for Federal tax purposes, thus reducing his Federal taxes, but in the end it is clear that Donald Trump and his roughly 250 LLC’s that own real estate probably pay many millions of dollars more in taxes than Hillary Clinton in her highest earning years.

The journalist that wrote this is ignorant. First- trump didn’t OWE a billion in taxes. He had a Capital LOSS of 916 million which means he sold something(s) at a loss like real estate, a business, equipment, vehicles etc. A capital loss is allowed to be spread over 5 years not 18. All lies and misleading people who don’t know tax accounting. Tax on 916 million wouldn’t be anywhere near a billion dollars either. This whole article is just hogwash. People sell stuff and hold capital gains and capital letters ssed all the time. Tax accountants use whatever tax breaks are available. Trump did NOT Cheat anyone – his tax preparers used available tax write offs just like everyone else does. A rich wealthy billionaire is going to have sells of real estate and other assets that will be of astronomical amounts in capital gains or losses. That’s normal!

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